Yesterday, we featured Old Chaser Farm—a 20-acre working farm and garden owned by Seattle star chef Matt Dillon to supply his area restaurants. The London Plane Flower Shop is a floral salon in two parts.
Photography by Ellie Lillstrom for Gardenista.
Marigold and Mint, which sources flowers from Anderson’s family farm in the Snoqualmie River Valley, is located just across the way from one of Dillon’s restaurants, and the two became friends over shared philosophies and aesthetic sensibilities.
The table at the restaurant’s entrance offers a variety of seasonal, mostly local, fresh-cut flowers for guests to choose themselves; it’s the only DIY flower bar in the city.
The DIY bouquet table in late summer. From March until the first frost (usually mid-October), almost all of the flowers come from local Washington farms, including Anderson’s.
“The flower world is a few years behind the food world in terms of embracing locally grown and seasonal,” she says.
Aside from the obvious reduced environmental impact, Anderson extols the virtues of working with flowers when they’re in season: “Peonies are awesome, but you do get sick of them,” she says.
The flowers at the entrance are a “mood elevator,” says Anderson.
Shades of pink on offer: globe amaranth, dahlias, and alliums.
“At the end of the day, the restaurant and flower shop feed each other.”
In addition to the make-your-own bouquet table, the London Plane makes custom bouquets plus full-fledged wedding flowers, holiday centerpieces, and even floral installations for parties and art events.
The flower shop is making an increasing number of dried flower arrangements, driven by demand.
A balcony view of the bouquet table and floral shop, located next to the dining area and pastry case. All custom orders are made at a long wooden table, visible to customers at the London Plane.
Dried schubertii alliums in the window at the front of the restaurant.
Red dahlias entice buyers at the entrance to the London Plane in Seattle’s Pioneer Square.